FINISHED in DUBLIN

Enjoying a good pint of Guinness!

It is a well deserved reward after this challenging Sailing Race from Sweden. 


The last half day, sailing in the Irish Sea, I sailed a little Eastly, where other boats had a more direct course to the Finish. I thought however that the later wind shift would favour my course as it would fill up the Spinnaker better.


AND .......so it did, I could pass in the last 4 hrs of sailing some 12 boats to finish in 49th place in a fleet of 754 boats. 


I like to thank LiveSkipper for the organisation of this Sailing Race and my fellow Skippers for the fierce competition. 

Rounding the gate at Lands-End

If you round the cliffs of Lands End, than the route to Dublin is opened for you!


The Channel yesterday offered a fine day of Sailing. A strong Westerly breeze, was giving sufficiently power to make a good boats speed. The wind direction, however, made it a game of tacking. 
Quiet challenging to make all your tacks, in between all the other Sailing Boats that do the same. Constant alertness was required to sail save and prevent collisions. More than a couple of shouts "Starboard", could be heard :)


The target for sure was the gate at LandsEnd. Once that was passed, for me on autopilot in the night, the route to Dublin opened up. Passing other boats will be difficult however as it looks the Westerly wind will allow to sail the Spinnaker all the way, be it that the wind is later on backing into the South. 


Rank:54 in a fleet of 754, 

Passed London and through the Straits of Dover

   

Through the STRAIT of DOVER!

That was the main achievement of Yesterday! It was late in the day, but luckily still daily hours, so I was able to see all the busy marine traffic in the narrow; do have a look at the MarineTraffic on the TAB above. 

Earlier in the day, a challenging approach of Sheerness was required to validate a gate, that was located quiet deep into the Thames estuary. It went not too bad, though the winds were a little challenging to get there. 

On the way back, however, the wind turned SW and strengthened so I could sail away quickly from the London area.

Now sailing the English Channel in a most Westerly wind,................

You guessed it right, a lot of tacks and hard work for the crew. The wind is maintaining a nice strength 15-20 kts, so it is beautiful for sailing. And all the other competing boats have to fight the same winds :)

My Rank this morning:74

Passing Oslo and Jutland

The view on the blooming fields and windmills of Jutland gives a nice picture in this time of year.


The sailing in the Kattegat, Denmark, enjoyed a nice strong wind filling the Spinnaker all the way. This gave us good progress, but not only me but also to other competing boats. However , I managed to pass some and gained some nice places before and while validating the gate close to Oslo. 


The night  gave some variable winds and though I put several WP's on the autopilot, I did loose again some valuable places. The wind update 1800gmt, apparently brought a change that was not foreseen in the weather forecast and favored the boats North of me more. 


Now , we have entered the North Sea and the water is wide open to choose a favorable strategy to sail quickest to London. 
The wind seems to be willing to help, as soon a strong NW wind systems fills in and will give us full spinnakers and plenty of boatspeed. 


rank this morning: 68 in a fleet of 759.  

Quick passage of Kobenhavn

No time to stop in Kobenhavn for sightseeing nor shopping as the Sailing Race goes on!


A good day of sailing in the Baltic yesterday; it could have been better though.


In the morning I thought I was a little to much to the west to be able to enjoy the beam winds lateron. So I made a tack to somewhat more Easterly locations. Later I saw that I could have made the tack SW earlier as the wind was also shifting. So a little lost to others and on the chase. 


In the night I put up the autopilot on WayPoints (WP) and correctly passed 3 race gates. Also the passage of Kobenhavn occurred in the night, so the picture is from the archive to show what I have missed rather.


After clearing the SW point of Sweden, the sail is changed to Spinnaker and full of wind is pushing me through the OreSund and into the Kattegat. With some trimming and slight optimization of heading, my target for today is to validate the Oslo gate and head to the North Sea.


Rank: 77 in a fleet of 760 boats.


Guess what some Flagships are also participating in this race, contrary to what I first thought. See the standings via the TAB above. 

Hard work on Return

The start at 1200 gmt went smooth with most boats leaving in time, some however had some delay in lifting the anchor or hoisting the sails


Holiday is over for sure as with the strong Southerly winds there will be a lot of work in making sure all the tacks are done properly. 
Later on Sunday the wind is backing to the East and most likely the Genoa can be changed for the Code 0.


My ranking this first morning is 64 in a fleet of 728 boats.

Holiday in Sweden is OVER

The Holiday in Sweden is Over. 

It was the 10th of June that we Finished the Sailing race towards Stockholm, that also started a sun-drenched summer holiday; remember that the sun rises earlier and set later on these high lotitudes. 


So after a well deserved Holiday in the Swedish country-side it is now time to set sail back home. 


AND.............................
Guess what .......................???


LiveSkipper has organised a new Sailing Race down as mirror image of the trip  up to Stockholm.


So prepare the boats and be ready for the START in Stockholm harbour. 
Starting time is Saturday 6th August at 12:00 GMT.  
The route is a mirror course towards the Finish in Dublin, Ireland ; see the TAB "Route&AIS traffic" about for details.


I hope to see you at the Start. 
Fair winds and Safe Sailing  

Finished the Five Capital Sailing Race in Stockholm

HURRAY           

SURATNA HAS FINISHED 

THE FIVE CAPITAL SAILING RACE 

IN STOCKHOLM

Yesterday evening I could pass the Finish line in Stockholm. The Finish line was a little tricky as on the west it was in between a lot  of tiny islands, but in the East it was in Open Sea. The shortest distance however was sailing as close as possible to the Western buoy, in between the many islands !

Luckily my WayPoint scheduler helped me in steering nice free of the island in the shortest possible time to the Finish. 

I finished as 81st, not the best of my races but hee you can't have it all.

My total sailing time was 8days, 1 hour, 7 minutes and 39 seconds ; which is 7 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds after the winner. 

I was also teaming to steer the club Flagship LSYC and we reached a 2nd place in the Flagship competition; the Flagship finished overall in the 47th place.
All results in detail you can find back in the TAB's on top of this page, as well as a look at the Race track and the route I have followed. 

The was a very enjoyable race, in general nice winds, a little too much head winds  and sometimes some surprises with sudden wind-shifts. It is all in the game!. 

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog, 

upto the next race ...........where?..........when?

Sailing in the Kattegat

The Ytre Hvaler gate#4 close to Oslo was passed yesterday by the leadersboats. Those boats are now sailing the Kattegat heading to the passage between Denmark and Sweden along Copenhavn. 


The wind was weaker yesterday and also today it is weak with wind strength in the single digits. 
The wind is also changing directions constantly now, under the influence of a depression on the North Sea close to Denmark.


I had worked out a nice strategy to sail west of the island of Laeso, which worked out the fastest to come to Copenhavn. During the night sailing on WP's autopilot the wind update of 1800 gmt, must have changed more then forecasted. This morning I found myself sailing with wrong sail at half speed. The fastest route now goes East from Laeso, luckily I still have sufficient time to make that heading change. 


My rank dropped to 126, so the chase is on again. 


So sailing on today in a weak wind that still is expected to bring the leading boats towards the next Gate#5 Kobenhavn after sailing under the beautiful OreSund bridge. 

 . 

Five Capital Sailing Race Started

Last night (well my night that was) the LiveSkipper Five Capital Sailing Race has started in Dublin, Ireland. 


I had a Start on the auto-pilot according previously set WP scheduler. It all went smooth with a SE course around the Irish coast to head to Landsend and the 1st Gate. 
Some change of sails performed in the middle of the night for better boat-speed.


My Rank this morning was 132 in a fleet of 914 boats. 


All ranking tables and trend charts have been activated and can be viewed by clicking on the TAB's above this post. The route map is also updated to Show the location of "Suratna" , that's my boat, each morning. 


For today the target is to pass the 1st Gate St. Buryan, to round the cliffs of Landsend and enter Eastwards into the Channel. 


Fair winds. 

Announcement for LiveSkipper Sailing Race

A Sailing Race will be held that will sail alongside 5 Capitals of West_European countries.

The Sailing Race is organised by LiveSkipper, in their Virtual Sailing Simulator. 

The Race will start in Dublin, capital of Ireland. The route will go along London, capital of GreatBrittain and via the North Sea go to Oslo, capital of Norway. 
From there it will sail in between Denmark and Sweden, close passing by of Kobenhavn, capital of Denmark. After rounding the South coast of Sweden the Race will have its Finish in Stockholm, capital of Sweden. 

The start will be on 1st June 2011 at 16:00 hrs UTC.

All players will use the same fast modern sailing boat, a monohull IMOCA60.The Polars for this boat are available on the LiveSkipper site. 


Registration is free and can be done LiveSkipper Five_Capital Sailing Race  


All you  need is an internet connection, a modern browser and your good sailing experience :)